Thursday, January 24, 2008

Rogues Gallery review on GQ

"This is a laboratory,' Rogues Gallery founder Alex Carleton says of his first store, opening next week in his native Portland, Maine. 'So it's something I wanted to keep close to me and play with it.' The result of his experimenting: a 1,000-square-foot former perfumery—the lavender still lingers—with sweaters spun at local farms, hand-loomed blankets from Northport's Swans Island, and one-off bags sourced from vintage materials and overdyed on site. (And, of course, his main line.) Just don't look for him to duplicate it in NYC or L.A. 'We're sort of interested in B-plus cities, like Seattle, Vancouver, and San Francisco,' he says. Hey, we'd give Vancouver at least an A-minus."